There were two things that Natalya felt as she was beginning to stir from her slumber. The first was an immensely satisfying sensation of warmth. It reminded her of those cold winter nights, where the cracks in her home allowed the freezing winds in and made her only safe refuge the thick, fluffy bed that she had.
The second feeling was of bondage. It was as if someone had bound bandages around her-
Natalya's eyes slowly opened, grunting multiple times as she had to adjust to the bright lights from the crackling flames dancing in front of her. Seems she had woken up on some sort of makeshift bed on the forest floor, made up of multiple quilts with patterns akin to those of tribal buffalos.
It also seems she had woken up during the nighttime as if the bright glow of the campfire and the distant chirpings of crickets didn't indicate that much already.
"My wings!!" she quickly turned her head to examine her wings, only to be pleasantly surprised when she saw them wrapped in bandages and folded back into their original position.
"Oh thank Celestia..." she said with tears in her eyes as she reached out and stroked them carefully. Her momentary burst of happiness was quickly shunned as something struck her.
She couldn't feel a thing on them!
'No...please, no' Natalya began to sob softly as she continued to gently stroke her crippled limbs. Yet no matter how many times she continued to stroke them in hopes of provoking a feeling from them, nothing happened.
She was permanently grounded.
Natalya could have laid there and continued to cry her hearts out. Heck, she deserved it after what she had just been through. But being the strong-willed griffin that she prided herself as, she steeled herself to at least get-up and thank whoever took the effort to save her sorry flank.
Turning her head around in hopes of seeing her mysterious benefactor, she was disappointed to find that she was all alone in the middle of the meadow; a campfire in front of her and numbers metallic cases arranged in a circle around her. She noticed that the boxes seemed to link up in a line and trailed towards a-
Natalya recoiled in shock as she thought she was staring at some sort of monster. The fact that the glow of the flames gave it an eerie grey sheen, and that its BLOODY HUGE body took up a majority of the meadow seemed to really reinforce that thought.
Her trembling soon faded into obscurity and it was instead replaced with morbid curiosity. What she had initially thought as its grey skin was instead slightly rusted green metal. What she had believed to be its claws, were instead two propeller blades attached to engines, which in turn were attached to the creature's wingspan.
Overall...she didn't know what to make of it.
It obviously wasn't a monster, rather it was a machine if the propellers and the metallic hull weren't indicative of that already. Yet it was no machine she had ever seen before. Based on the wheels mounted at the bottom, its large wingspan and the propellers attached to it, it was obviously built for flight.
Natalya knew that ponies had created numerous machines that were capable of flight; hot air balloons and airships were just a few that popped in her head, yet none of them looked came to mind when she stared at the foreign machine in front of them.
She could have continued to sit there and stare at the machine, but an extremely intoxicating smell quickly grabbed her attention, and her stomach's attention as well. Seems the smell originated near the campfire, straight out of a small pot that occupied one of the many stones used as foundation blocks. A quick peek at the chunky brown stew inside, plus another sniff identified to Natalya that it was meat-based, something that made her more hungry and slightly afraid at the same time.
Griffins are one of the few sentient species on Equestria that have meat as a center of their diet. But since they have to play nice with ponies now, their meat-based diet was slowly getting subsidized with vegetarian options. Personally, Natalya didn't care much for what kind of meal she ate as long as it was filling and cheap; still, she does miss the taste of a good rat steak.
This begas a question though, whose meal is this?
It obviously wasn't a pony's, that much was for sure. And definitively not a wild animal's, if the complexity of the campsite wasn't a good enough indication to its intelligence. Really the only two creatures that Natalya could think of that ate meat and is smart enough to build a campfire, was either a dragon or another griffin.
Yet neither species had any need for flight apparatuses, heck they had wings for that!
"Arghhh..." Natalya groaned and clutched her head as a migraine slowly formed. She was thinking way too hard into this. She should be glad that she was still alive and enjoy the food that was put in front of her, instead of worrying too much.
As Natalya reacted forwards with intent to grab the convenient cooking spoon sticking out of the pot, she was suddenly interrupted with the sound of several leaves crunching underneath hooves, as when as a series of guttural noises akin to metal being rubbed with sandpaper.
Turning around slowly, she was greeted with perhaps four of the most terrifying and strange creatures she had ever seen. She couldn't call all of the creatures as only one seemed to possess flesh, the rest were metal just like the flying mechanism behind her.
The first one made of metal was quadrupedal, emulating the shape and behavior of a dog. Apart from its behavior, which included the way it sat and panted its non-existent tongue, that was as far as it went to being a dog. It was covered in with crudely put together metal plating for its body, exposing many of its internal wires and the exoskeleton which held the whole structure together. On its spine was a series of wicked looking spikes which curled back towards its rump. It's most terrifying aspect, however, had to be its face. Despite its oversized yellow eyes which were meant to make it look cute, its jaws revealed rows upon rows of jagged teeth made up of drill bits, rotating threateningly every time it looked at her.
The next one was...difficult to describe. At best, she could describe it as a floating metal ball, though Natalya had no idea how the thing was capable of such a feat without the aid of magic or wings. Multiple thin metal rods stuck out of various places on the ball's rusted body, most of which were angled towards its rear. One particular rod, however, faced its front, placed underneath what she believed was its face.
The last two were common for the fact that they were both bipedal. But that was as far as their similarity went.
Of the two, the first was a massive, hulking individual made of metal. Every aspect of its body screamed power and strength; from its massive armor which gave it the unique appearance of wearing a carapace, its metal fists encased with a steel gauntlet, to its three-toed feet. the only part that Natalya felt was inconsistent with its image was its tiny head- which even then stared ominously back at her with its quadruple orange eyes.
The last bipedal held the most attention, however, as while the others were interesting and threatening in their own rights, this one was on an entirely different level. For one, it was composed of flesh- as she could see from the rolled up sleeves of its trenchcoat. On what she presumed were its claws, it wore some sort of clothing that covered a majority of its claw, but still left holes for each of its individual digits. One each of its shoulders, plates of armor were strapped overs its trenchcoat- the same armor underneath the coat as well as an array of belts and a bandolier.
The final interesting part had to be its head.
Like all of its companions, its head was unique to itself. It wore a large helmet, of which some weird language she couldn't read was scratched onto its surface. A device with a thin metal rod sticking out also was placed on the right side of the helmet. Wrapped around the helmet was a black belt, of which several perplexing objects were placed inside such as two playing cards, a metallic poker chip and what seemed to be a clip with three tiny cylinders attached together.
Likewise, with its helmet, its face was both creepy and confusing. Two small tubes ran directly into its metallic cheeks, above of which were two glowing red eyes. What she had initially mistaken to be its eyes, she soon realized that it was in fact made of red glass, one of which had been ruptured to form a small hole.
The red-eyed bipedal made more scrapping noises, this time pointing one of its digits at her. It was trying to communicate to her in some language, but all it did was made her cock her head in confusion.
"Um...what?" despite her response, the bipedal just placed its claws underneath its chin as if it was contemplating something, It then probably sighed before making more screeching noises, this time directed at the metal dog and the metallic bipedal. The two of them vanished into the dark of the forest at its command.
Turning its attention back to Natalya, it reached down to its neck, and to her surprise, lifted off its helmet, revealing to her that its metallic face was actually part of the helmet itself.
Its real face was much more different, similar to a male minotaur's but lacking much of the hair, except on its upper and lower lips as well as its head where one side was shaved completely while the other sprouted long black hair. Its nose was smaller, the mouth was more shrunken and it had higher cheekbones with olive skin. Its eyes, though a warm brown color, lack any life to them, much like the expression on its face.
She watched with a wary eye as it walked towards the campfire, depositing its helmet as well as its alien-looking weapon on one of the many cases, and instead picked up a smaller square box with the universal symbol of the healer's cross stamped on the front.
Her eyes widened in fear when the male bipedal pulled out a unique looking syringe filled with some kind of red liquid. It made several gestures and noises towards her again, this time specifically aimed at her crippled wings.
"Nuh-uh. No way" Natalya made a cross symbol with her claws and frantically shook her head, "You are not injecting me your mystery jizz"
The male bipedal just rolled its eyes and made more guttural noises, much to her annoyance.
That annoyance didn't persist long as she yelped when she felt herself getting lifted off the ground and slammed into the forest floor. Seems the metallic bipedal had snuck up on her and held her to the grounds on the command of the male bipedal, effectively trapping her underneath its weight.
Powerless to do anything, she watched with horror as the male bipedal stepped forwards and fanned her damaged wings out. Stabbing the needle deep into the feathers, she heard the soft hissing sound of escaping gas, followed by a slight feeling at the base of her wings.
Wait...she could feel something at the base of her wings?
She flexed her wings slowly, testing out the waters a bit. Yep, true to her thoughts she could feel something in her wings as she moved them. She couldn't immediately flap them, obviously, but feeling something in her wings left her in tears as she considered the possibility of recovery.
Natalya was so absorbed with her wings that she didn't even notice the metallic bipedal had let her go and disappeared back into the confines of the forest. The male bipedal then wiped the spent needle with a rag and then placed back into the case in which it was found.
"Hmm...?" She looked down to see a plate of stew placed in front of her talons, fork, spoon and all. Looking over to the male bipedal, she saw him sitting on one of the boxes and already digging into her portion of the meal.
"Is...is this for me?" asked Natalya. She frowned slightly when she didn't hear any reply from the male. He instead, just continued to eat the meal as if he didn't even hear her.
"Excuse me?" She tried a little louder this time, smiling slightly when she was able to grab his attention. Pointing to the plate, she once again asked her question, "Is this for me?"
A slow nod from the male was all the motivation she needed. Picking up her spoon she began to scoop copious amounts of stew into her beak.
The taste was...heavenly.
Oh, it was simply divine. She hadn't had this much good meat in her diet for a long time. The price of meat had inflated to extraordinary prices in the last months, forcing the money stingy griffins to instead adopt more vegetables into their diet. On the rare occasion that Natalya bought meat, it was often for special occasions such as her birthday, or when she got a promotion from work.
To her, the taste of the meat was like ambrosia. The way its distinctive flavor would just melt in her mouth was a feeling that she would always treasure-no matter how many fine vegetarian cuisines she ate.
And it was all gone. Just like that.
Natalya looked down at her empty plate in shock and disappointment. She had been so caught up in her fantasies that she hadn't realized that she had cleaned her plate in mere minutes. Looking over to her savior, she ignored his widened eyes and instead focused on the half-finished plate in his hands.
Neither of them said anything as the male bipedal followed her eyes to the treasure he held in his hands. He then looked up at her. Then down again. Then up again.
Sighing loudly, the male bipedal walked over and placed his plate down to replace her's. Grinning at her success, Natalya was going to take another bite of stew until she was interrupted by the bipedal returning again with the entire pot, which he then dumped next to her plate.
"No, wait. I didn't mean it like that" She had only meant to ask for seconds, not the entire damn pot. But before she could attempt to correct the mistake she made, the male bipedal had already waltzed off, leaving her in the presence of his floating ball and a pot full of the most divine food ever.
...
"Huh, must be my luck" shrugged Natalya as she picked up her spoon once again and delved into the heaven that was the stew.
Houston slowly dropped the blanket over the creature's snoozing figure with a slight smirk of amusement on his face. Seems it had eaten itself to sleep as she used a clean cloth to wipe the remnant of the pork and bean stew from its beaks.
<Master, You've been smiling more ever since we took that neutral specimen in>
"Am I now?" asked Houston to B-6-RK. Seems the robotic hound had finished its patrol routines and returned back to the base, "Do I really not smile that much?"
<No Master. You do smile. But not always. Not since. Hopeville>
Okay. Now B-6-RK went too far there.
"Shut it B-6-RK" snarled Houston to his robotic dog. Holding the stack of plates in his hands, he dumped them into a larger pot simmering on the fire, as well as half a box of Abraxo cleaner in with it.
"Continue your patrol B-6-RK," said Houston again after a brief moment of silence between the two, this time in a more controlled voice, "Make sure nothing happens to her as she sleeps, okay?"
<How does Master know that it is female?>
"I checked between her legs when I was operating on her" replied Houston nonchalantly, despite the small series of protest from his robotic friends, "What? At least I'm not like No-Bark Noonan"
<Sure...Master>
Rolling his eyes as B-6-RK walked off to initial its patrol routine once more, Houston snapped his fingers at ED-E, who promptly followed with a bunch of cheery beeps.
Opening the door to his plane, he and ED-E climbed inside to the main cargo area. Most of the crates have already been unloaded off the plane with the only things left inside were a few crates, the robot's charge pods and Houston's personal terminal which sat on a desk.
"Let's see, password," said Houston sadly as she sat down and opened it to the password screen.
<Beep. Beep. Beep. Boop.>
"Nah, I'm okay Ed-E" Houston shrugged off Ed-E's concerns as he typed the password in.
Hope. Always. Begins. At. Hopeville
"ED-E, I'll need to shut you down temporarily"
<Beep. Skreech.>
"I'll turn you back on later. You did record her voice, didn't you?"
<Beep. Beep.> Replied ED-E proudly. He floated over to Houston and allowed himself to be switched off with a flick from his owner. Placing ED-E still body next to the terminal, Houston took out several colored cables and attached them to both ED-E and his terminal.
Placing a set of headphones on his ears, Houston picked out a piece of paper and a pencil.
"Time to translate. Guess I'll be staying up all night again" mumbled Houston as he pressed the play button on the terminal and sat back to listen to the recordings.
"Time to go to bed. Thank Celestia I finished up" The alicorn princess Twilight Sparkle yawned loudly as she closed her book and placed it back upon the shelf in which she took it from.
Flicking the switch at the entrance of her bedroom, she then threw herself at her soft, warm bed, eager to fall into the blissful hooves of a good night's sleep.
She didn't get very far, cause just as she was about to doze off the doors to her room slammed open with a resounding crack.
"Ahhhh! SPIKE?!"
"Sorry Twilight. But two griffins insisted that they speak to you immediately. They said it was really important!!"
In the darkness of her room, her weary eyes could pick out the familiar outline of her faithful dragon assistant, as well as two pairs of frightened and panicked bronze eyes.